On February 15, the Pit River Tribe unanimously affirmed a resolution opposing geothermal and other industrial developments in the sacred Medicine Lake Highlands. The resolution affirms that geothermal development would threaten the underlying aquifer and would result in the injection of toxins into the atmosphere and waters.

The Pit River Tribal resolution indicates that the new proposals are incompatible with the use of the Medicine Lake Highlands as a sacred area. The Tribe maintains that the construction and development of even a single geothermal power generation plant would result in irreversible impacts to the sensitive cultural resources of the highlands and devastate the habitats of plants and animals. The Tribal resolution calls upon the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service to reject all proposed geothermal development in the area.

The Pit River Tribe has been in court since 2002 over proposed development of geothermal energy in the Medicine Lake Highlands. The lease holder, Calpine Energy, must reapply for extensions of leases that the Tribe maintains were illegally issued by the BLM in 1988. The company has scrapped the original plan to build a 48 megawatt power plant and is reported to be leaning towards building several 100 megawatt plants in the sacred highlands.

Read More | Pit River Tribe | See Also: Sacred Medicine Lake Near Mt. Shasta Faces Destruction! | Morning Star Gali (Pitt River Nation) on desecration of native lands